So I DMed a game last night where my buddy played a Gunslinger. Party comp was a three-man band; Human Sorcerer, Halfling Caviler 2 / Cleric 3, Drow Gunslinger. All players were 5th level.
To sum up the night, the Gunslinger kind of sucked. He chose the Two-Weapon Pistol option, and even with Rapid Reload, he didn't get to attack very often. Really hurt his ability to fight and you could tell that the player was getting bored rather quickly because he had to take every other turn to reload instead of actually doing something.
The major problem with the class is that what it gets as class features aren't worth it and what it needs are all nicely wrapped in feats. Finally, the class does not feel like a Fighter; it plays more like a very neutered Rogue. This is mostly because of the lack of feats; the character doesn't have enough of the Fighter's options or special modifiers to feel specialized in guns. At 5th level, the Character felt more like a privileged novice.
Here are some suggestions to improve the class, based on what I saw:
1) Detach Deeds from the Gunslinger Class/ One of the core concepts of the Fighter class is that they don't have tricks that no one else can do. They have more tricks then anyone else involving combat. Gunslingers should be the same way; it doesn't FEEL right for a Fighter or even a Wild West Sheriff to have a list of abilities only they can use, while being starved in the sense that they won't know how to properly shot a gun into melee combat.
2) Change Amateur Gunslinger's name and function. The fact that the Gunslinger has its own, private, "better" version of this feat is silly. In my opinion, Gunslingers should get Amateur Gunslinger as a bonus feat at first level, with levels in the class modifying its use like every Monk Combat Feat in the game. I'd change the name to Gunner's Grit or the like. Add a Special entry that states that Gunslingers have a maximum number of grit points equal to 1 + their Wisdom modifier and that they start each day with the maximum number of grit points. There is no reason to have a feat like this that just disappears for a character (see Improved Unarmed Strike).
2) Remove Signature Deed as a feat and add it as a class feature of the Gunslinger class. Even though the changes I am proposing will allow anyone to use Grit and Deeds (which is a good thing in my opinion), the Gunslinger should be the ultimate master of Grit. Because of this, I recommend replacing the old Deeds class feature with a Signature Deed class feature every few levels. Same function as the current feat of the same name, but Gunslinger only and granted enough times through the course of their career that the Deeds that are chosen define the character. Face it, as long as Lightning Reload exists (again, it SHOULD. It alone makes the Gunslinger actually competitive in my opinion) every Gun-based character is going to take it and Signature Deed at 11th level to essentially have free reloads. That combination should be limited to the Gunslinger only, and getting rid of Signature Deed and making it a Gunslinger class feature is the best way to do it.
3) Change around the conditions that grant a Gunslinger Grit. I like the Grit system. I really do. But it's so limited right now that its not even worth it. I have a hunch that the developers wanted regaining Grit to be cool. Guess what? Its not cool if it never happens. Gunslinger as written is a huge throwback to 3.5 when characters would have all of these X/Day abilities that they never wanted to use. Isn't that why Bardic Performance and Rage were changed to Rounds/Day instead of uses? Grit is a complete regression of the Pathfinder philosophy unless it can be restored more reliably. I suggest the following things:
a) Remove the rule Grit on dropping a foe to 0. It encourages metagame thinking, and while that's really a player issue, it doesn't help when the rules themselves support such thinking. (For example, even though they're the very last player to go, all of the other characters delay their turn so the Grit user can be the one to get the finishing blow on the monster so he is actually useful in combat).
b) Change the Daring Act to be less contrived. Gunslingers weren't awesome because they did stupid things. Gunslingers were awesome because they did things that seemed impossible to US, the audience, but were well within the physical and mental abilities of the Gunslinger. How it SHOULD be is whenever the Gunslinger succeeds on a Str-based or Dex-based check in combat, succeeds on a Combat Maneuver, or a creature fails to to overcome their AC or CMD with an attack, the Gunslinger gets a grit point. Challenges, for the most part, scale with character level; enemies are constantly getting stronger and areas are constantly getting more dangerous; as a result, you don't NEED the 50% line, because a lot of these occurrences will be rare enough as it is. For example, a Gunslinger trades away their Medium and Heavy armor proficiency; how often are they going to be able to resist an attack roll from, say, another Fighter or something nasty like a dragon?
In conclusion, the special ability progression of the Gunslinger should look a little bit like this:
01 | Firearm, Gunner's Grit, Grit Feat
02 | Bonus Feat, Brave and Tough +1
03 | Signature Deed
04 | Bonus Feat
05 | Gun Training
06 | Bonus Feat, Brave and Tough +2
07 | Signature Deed
08 | Bonus Feat
09 | Gun Training 2
10 | Bonus Feat, Brave and Tough +3
11 | Signature Deed
12 | Bonus Feat
13 | Gun Training 3
14 | Bonus Feat, Brave and Tough +4
15 | Signature Deed
16 | Bonus Feat
17 | Gun Training 4
18 | Bonus Feat, Brave and Tough +5
19 | Signature Deed
20 | Bonus Feat, True Grit
Note: At 1st level, the Gunslinger MUST select a Grit Feat. At subsequent levels, they can pick any Grit Feat or any of the following Combat Feats: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, etc.
Also, that remains me. Can you use Manyshot with guns if your gun's barrel is big enough?
you could probably use manyshot with a gun that has an ammo capacity higher than 1
you could probably use manyshot with a gun that has an ammo capacity higher than 1
Yes! Or one with two or more barrels.